Educated Catholics have sown dissent and confusion in the Church, claims bishop

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The Rt Rev Patrick O'Donoghue, the Bishop of Lancaster, has claimed that graduates are spreading scepticism and sowing dissent. Instead of following the Church's teaching they are "hedonistic", "selfish" and "egocentric", he said.

In particular, the bishop complained that influential Catholics in politics and the media were undermining the Church.

While not naming names, he suggested that such people had been compromised by their education, which he said had a "dark side, due to original sin".

Prominent Catholics in public life include Mark Thompson, the BBC's director general, and Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister.

Bishop O'Donoghue, who has recently published a report on how to renew Catholicism in Britain, argued that mass education has led to "sickness in the Church and wider society".

"What we have witnessed in Western societies since the end of the Second World War is the development of mass education on a scale unprecedented in human history - resulting in economic growth, scientific and technological advances, and the cultural and social enrichment of billions of people's lives," he said.

"However, every human endeavor has a dark side, due to original sin and concupiscence. In the case of education, we can see its distortion through the widespread dissemination of radical skepticism, positivism, utilitarianism and relativism.

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I found this article extremely humorous for some reason. This Bishop thinks education is the cure for Catholicism apparently ;).

On a related note... this type of sentiment (education = bad) is so poisonous and unfortunately so pervasive among the right wing today... education and intellectualism are scoffed at, and ignorance is paraded around like an accomplishment. It needs to be fixed.

I found this article extremely humorous for some reason. This Bishop thinks education is the cure for Catholicism apparently ;).

On a related note... this type of sentiment (education = bad) is so poisonous and unfortunately so pervasive among the right wing today... education and intellectualism are scoffed at, and ignorance is paraded around like an accomplishment. It needs to be fixed.

The bishop said that Catholic graduates had rejected the reforms made in the second council of the Vatican, which introduced fundamental changes in issues such as liturgy and doctrine.

"The Second Vatican Council tends to be misinterpreted most by Catholics who have had a university education -- that is, by those most exposed to the intellectual and moral spirit of the age," he said. "These well-educated Catholics have gone on to occupy influential positions in education, the media, politics, and even the Church, where they have been able to spread their so-called loyal dissent, causing confusion and discord in the whole church."

There's nothing particularly amusing about intellectuals picking and choosing out of any body of knowledge: religious, scientific, or philosophical. The bishop was pointing out, correctly, that misinterpreting doctrine in the wake of Vatican II had led to wholesale ignorance among prominent individuals who were also Catholic. This was not an example of cradle Catholics who attended university and then rejected Catholicism, much less Christianity. It was an example of how people no longer believe that they should study a knowledge area before rejecting parts of it and misapplying the rest.

Don't think that this style of behavior is confined to religion. It is increasingly a feature of popular notions in science, the arts, and philosophy. It is why, in fact, something like 12% of atheists also claim to believe in God. ;)

There's nothing particularly amusing about intellectuals picking and choosing out of any body of knowledge: religious, scientific, or philosophical. The bishop was pointing out, correctly, that misinterpreting doctrine in the wake of Vatican II had led to wholesale ignorance among prominent individuals who were also Catholic. This was not an example of cradle Catholics who attended university and then rejected Catholicism, much less Christianity. It was an example of how people no longer believe that they should study a knowledge area before rejecting parts of it and misapplying the rest.

Do you need to engage in a studious career of learning the intricacies of tarot card reading to reject it? In the same way you don't need to know much at all about Christianity (or any other religion for that matter) in order to reject it. You just need to know the basic claims and premises.... anything beyond that is inconsequential. I don't need to know the shoe size of bigfoot in order to reject the idea of bigfoot.

Don't think that this style of behavior is confined to religion. It is increasingly a feature of popular notions in science, the arts, and philosophy. It is why, in fact, something like 12% of atheists also claim to believe in God. ;)

Rejection of religion seems to be a natural product of objective reasoning and this Bishop seems to agree... of course the bishop had to throw 'utilitarian' and 'relativism' in there for good measure, but I imagine neither of those have anything to do with it at all.

Do you need to engage in a studious career of learning the intricacies of tarot card reading to reject it? In the same way you don't need to know much at all about Christianity (or any other religion for that matter) in order to reject it. You just need to know the basic claims and premises.... anything beyond that is inconsequential. I don't need to know the shoe size of bigfoot in order to reject the idea of bigfoot.

Rejection of religion seems to be a natural product of objective reasoning and this Bishop seems to agree... of course the bishop had to throw 'utilitarian' and 'relativism' in there for good measure, but I imagine neither of those have anything to do with it at all.

Kind of like one doesn't need to spend much time reviewing atheism to understand that it is a farce with no evidence to support its conclusions? Isn't it odd that more people reject atheism out of hand than they do religion?

Also the Bishop in question wasn't referring to education in general, he was referring to the liberal indoctrination that some in society call education.

“Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far more miraculous than a miracle.”
G. K. Chesterton

Do you need to engage in a studious career of learning the intricacies of tarot card reading to reject it? In the same way you don't need to know much at all about Christianity (or any other religion for that matter) in order to reject it. You just need to know the basic claims and premises.... anything beyond that is inconsequential. I don't need to know the shoe size of bigfoot in order to reject the idea of bigfoot.

In the same way, you don't need to know to know much about politics, social science, natural science, art, literature, music, or philosophy to reject them - and an increasing number of people are doing so.

The random shotgun nature of education in the West is manifesting in numbers of people who dismiss or misapply parts of knowledge. If you could put aside your reflexive distaste for believers and understand that this a much wider problem, we'd have a more interesting conversation about this.

Working in science, I see this phenomenon a lot. The "educated" public isn't very well educated at all but that doesn't stop them from attaining policy positions. It's a real problem and it isn't going away.

Do you need to engage in a studious career of learning the intricacies of tarot card reading to reject it? In the same way you don't need to know much at all about Christianity (or any other religion for that matter) in order to reject it. You just need to know the basic claims and premises.... anything beyond that is inconsequential. I don't need to know the shoe size of bigfoot in order to reject the idea of bigfoot.

Consider that perhaps that is because the devil is in the details.

At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that news is not something that happens to other people. ~ Robert Heinlein

In the same way, you don't need to know to know much about politics, social science, natural science, art, literature, music, or philosophy to reject them - and an increasing number of people are doing so.

The random shotgun nature of education in the West is manifesting in numbers of people who dismiss or misapply parts of knowledge. If you could put aside your reflexive distaste for believers and understand that this a much wider problem, we'd have a more interesting conversation about this.

Working in science, I see this phenomenon a lot. The "educated" public isn't very well educated at all but that doesn't stop them from attaining policy positions. It's a real problem and it isn't going away.

I have worked with a lot of highly educated people, up and including not a few PhDs all but one of them are believers to some degree or another. The one lone unbeliever is an agnostic and he could care less about what others believe. He could care less to the point of not feeling the need to comment on their beliefs. He does have some interesting opinions of atheists and agnostics who feel the need to comment on all things of faith. At any rate the most of these acquiesces went to college in the early 80's and most became believers later in life. I did not become a Christian until about 2 and a half years ago so there are several members of CU who remember me before I was a Christian. In the end my education neither helped nor hindered my coming to faith and since I came to believe in Christ as my Lord and Savior I have used my brains to find reasons not to believe but all the study only enforces my belief that there is a loving Sovereign God in control of everything. Personally I think that the attractiveness of atheism is it makes man his own sovereign and gives him a false sense of being in control of his own life.

“Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far more miraculous than a miracle.”
G. K. Chesterton

Do you need to engage in a studious career of learning the intricacies of tarot card reading to reject it? In the same way you don't need to know much at all about Christianity (or any other religion for that matter) in order to reject it. You just need to know the basic claims and premises.... anything beyond that is inconsequential. I don't need to know the shoe size of bigfoot in order to reject the idea of bigfoot.

Rejection of religion seems to be a natural product of objective reasoning and this Bishop seems to agree... of course the bishop had to throw 'utilitarian' and 'relativism' in there for good measure, but I imagine neither of those have anything to do with it at all.

In particular, the bishop complained that influential Catholics in politics and the media were undermining the Church.

If they merely "rejected it," there would be no problem. What they have done is straddle the fence, maintaining that they are still Catholic while being so ignorant of the foundation of Catholicism that they act against, and influence people away from, the beliefs they claim as their own.

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In actual dollars, President Obama’s $4.4 trillion in deficit spending in just three years is 37 percent higher than the previous record of $3.2 trillion (held by President George W. Bush) in deficit spending for an entire presidency. It’s no small feat to demolish an 8-year record in just 3 years.

Under Obama’s own projections, interest payments on the debt are on course to triple from 2010 (his first budgetary year) to 2018, climbing from $196 billion to $685 billion annually.

So Catholics prefer their followers be uneducated? Is that it? Actually kind of makes sense to me.

Influential Catholics tend to be uneducated in Catholicism. If they don't know their beliefs, they should leave the church...or educate themselves.

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In actual dollars, President Obama’s $4.4 trillion in deficit spending in just three years is 37 percent higher than the previous record of $3.2 trillion (held by President George W. Bush) in deficit spending for an entire presidency. It’s no small feat to demolish an 8-year record in just 3 years.

Under Obama’s own projections, interest payments on the debt are on course to triple from 2010 (his first budgetary year) to 2018, climbing from $196 billion to $685 billion annually.